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At my previous job the company heavily relied on an industry standard application. This app basically had a monopoly on that particular industry. However, they
by Apreche 4y ago
At my previous job the company heavily relied on an industry standard application. This app basically had a monopoly on that particular industry. However, they were pushing the app beyond the limits of most other companies. It was also just generally an old and busted Windows 2000 era kind of deal.
When I first arrived, and knew nothing, they told me we were going to build a replacement. That sounded great to me at the time. Obviously the right thing to do is replace something old and busted.
Well, I and the company learned over time that actually that was not really the best business strategy. It may have been possible, but not with the resources we had available. I ended up doing a whole lot of work that went unused, through no fault of my own.
- habibur 4y agoA better strategy is to first move a small part of it out of the system. And not go for a complete rewrite. And then make sure the old system can work as a proxy for the new system, or vice versa. When both can be used simultaneously you can now gradually move from one to the other, or revert back as needed. This is what I followed.
- naasking 4y agoIt reduces risk of failure but can end up costing more in the end. It's like doing a home renovation piece by piece rather than all at once: if you have the capital upfront and an experienced professional, doing the whole reno at once will be cheaper.
- Sammi 4y agoIf you need to keep things running and to make changes while doing the rewrite, then you might not have any other option than the Strangler Pattern.
- Sammi 4y agoSo common it has a name: https://www.google.com/search?q=the+strangler+pattern https://www.google.com/search?q=the+strangler+pattern